30 Nov, 2017
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November
21 books read. 10 by women (48%), 11 by men (52%)
Works by POC: 5 (24%)
Whoops. I did a last minute swap of reviews to address one issue and overlooked the effect on the ratio of books by women to books by men. I suppose I could just chalk this down to human error and move on.
Year to Date
233 works reviewed. 126.5 by women (54%). 101.5 by men (44%). 4 by non-binary authors (2%). 1 by N/A (0.0%)
Works by POC: 69.5 (30%)
25 Nov, 2017
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War is coming to Hob Ravani’s world. The company that holds it in monopoly, TransRift Inc, has at last found what they’re looking for – the source of the power that enables their Weathermen to rip holes in space and time, allowing the interstellar travel all of human society now takes for granted. And they will mine every last grain of it from Tanegawa’s World no matter the cost.
Since Hob Ravani used her witchy powers to pull a massive train job and destroy TransRift Inc’s control on this part of the planet, the Ghost Wolves aren’t just outlaws, they’re the resistance. Mag’s miner collective grows restless as TransRift pushes them ever harder to strip the world of its strange, blue mineral. Now Shige Rollins has returned with a new charge – Mr Yellow, the most advanced model of Weatherman, infused with the recovered mineral samples and made into something stranger, stronger, and deadlier than before. And Mr Yellow is very, very hungry.
23 Nov, 2017
As with the previous core lists, here are twenty Urban Fantasies chosen entirely on the basis of merit and significance to the field1. No implication is intended that these are the only twenty works you should consider2.
Magic Bites by Ilona Andrews
Borderline by Mishell Baker
Blood and Iron by Elizabeth Bear
War for the Oaks by Emma Bull
Strange Toys by Patricia Geary
The Vampire Tapestry by Suzy McKee Charnas
What We Do in the Shadows by Jemaine Clement & Taika Waititi
A Key, an Egg, an Unfortunate Remark by Harry Connolly
Stray Souls by Kate Griffin
Blood Price by Tanya Huff
Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber
Rosemary and Rue by Seanan McGuire
Certain Dark Things by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
Death Note by Tsugumi Ohba & Takeshi Obata
Unquenchable Fire by Rachel Pollack
Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
My Life as a White Trash Zombie by Diana Rowland
Stay Crazy by Erika L. Satifka
Kitty and the Midnight Hour by Carrie Vaughn
Darker Than You Think by Jack Willamson
Persons unfamiliar with one or two of the works, congratulations! You’re one of today’s Ten Thousand!
1: There are two filtering rules:
Only one work per author per list
Any given work by a particular author can appear on only one list. A given author may, however, have works on various lists but each instance of their work will be unique.
2: NO IMPLICATION IS INTENDED THAT THESE ARE THE ONLY TWENTY WORKS YOU SHOULD CONSIDER.
11 Nov, 2017
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Forsyth Turn never wanted to be a hero. And yet, even in the Overrealm, a hero is what he’ll be.
After their last adventure in Hain, Forsyth expected to return to the life he’d built with Pip and Alis, his days of magic and heroics behind him. But then Pip starts suffering night terrors laced with images of glowing ivy and Elgar Reed calls with fears of bizarre threats and a man garbed all in black.
But there is no magic in the Overrealm. Forsyth refuses to believe that anything other than mundane coincidence is at work — until Elgar’s stalker leaves him a message too eerie and specific to ignore. Now, he has to face the possibility that Pip’s dreams and Elgar’s fears are connected … and that maybe they weren’t the only ones to escape the pages of The Tales of Kintyre Turn.
And if that’s the case, it’s going to take more than a handful of heroes to save the day this time. It’s going to take an army. Luckily, Reed fans are legion.
A stunning conclusion to the series, The Silenced Tale is a genre-bending whirlwind that breathes life into the idea that the power of story lies not just with the creator, but with the fans who love it.
19 stories of meteorological, agricultural and biological technologies, alternative histories, arcologies and communes, beauty in flooded cities, innovations in cross-continental travel, animals on the verge of extinction, androids, reality tv, new food, environmental refugees, the divide between humans and animals, and friendship, family and love.
Ecopunk! Speculative Tales of Radical Futures examines how humanity might cope with dramatic changes in nature, and adjust to new versions of normal.
Ecopunk! shares stories in which the human race embraces these changes, using innovative technologies and fresh attitudes to make our emerging world sustainable.
Amelia dreams of Mars. The Mars of the movies and the imagination, an endless bastion of opportunities for a colonist with some guts. But she’s trapped in Mexico City, enduring the drudgery of an unkind metropolis, working as a rent-a-friend, selling her blood to old folks with money who hope to rejuvenate themselves with it, enacting a fractured love story. And yet there’s Mars, at the edge of the silver screen, of life. It awaits her.
Jazz Bashara is a criminal. Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you’re not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you’ve got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent. Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down. But pulling off the impossible is just the start of her problems, as she learns that she’s stepped square into a conspiracy for control of Artemis itself — and that now, her only chance at survival lies in a gambit even riskier than the first.
4 Nov, 2017
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The adventures of cheerleader-turned-alien-hunter Mana continue in this sequel to Flying by the New York Times bestselling author of Need, Carrie Jones.
Seventeen-year-old Mana has found and rescued her mother, but her work isn’t done yet. Her mother may be out of alien hands, but she’s in a coma, unable to tell anyone what she knows.
Mana is ready to take action. The only problem? Nobody will let her. Lyle, her best friend and almost-boyfriend (for a minute there, anyway), seems to want nothing to do with hunting aliens, despite his love of Doctor Who. Bestie Seppie is so desperate to stay out of it, she’s actually leaving town. And her mom’s hot but arrogant alien-hunting partner, China, is ignoring Mana’s texts, cutting her out of the mission entirely.
They all know the alien threat won’t stay quiet for long. It’s up to Mana to fight her way back in.
When the state controls your emotions, how hard will you fight to feel free?
In a radiant world of endless summer, the Intercept keeps the peace. Violet Crowley, the sixteen-year-old daughter of New Earth’s Founding Father, has spent her life in comfort and safety. Her days are easy thanks to the Intercept, a crime-prevention device that monitors emotion. But when her long-time crush, Danny Mayhew, gets into a dangerous altercation on Old Earth, Violet launches a secret investigation to find out what he’s hiding. An investigation that will lead her to question everything she’s ever known about Danny, her father, and the power of the Intercept.
ALL EMOTIONS ARE UNIVERSAL.
WE LIVE, WE DREAM, WE STRIVE, WE DIE …
Follow twenty-three science fiction and fantasy authors on their journeys through Asia and beyond. Stories that explore magic and science. Stories about love, revenge, and choices. Stories that challenge ideas about race, belonging, and politics. Stories about where we come from and where we are going. Each wrestling between ghostly pasts and uncertain future. Each trying to find a voice in history.
Orphans and drug-smuggling in deep space. Mechanical arms in steampunk Vancouver. Djinns and espionage in futuristic Istanbul. Humanoid robot in steamy Kerala. Monsters in the jungles of Cebu. Historic time travel in Gyeongbok Palace. A rocket launch in post-apocalyptic Tokyo. A drunken ghost in Song Dynasty China. A displaced refugee skating on an ice planet. And much more.
Embrace them as you take on their journeys. And don’t look back …
Nobody expects to get turned into a vampire, especially a guy like Bob.
Everybody hopes that if they somehow get transformed into a vampire, they will instantly become some kind of superhero vampire out of the movies. Bad news guys: not gonna happen. More likely than not, you’re gonna be one of the poor clueless bastards hanging out on Thursday nights with Bob in his vampire support group.
You may think you know what being a vampire is supposed to be like, but Bob is here to set you straight. He’s made it his personal mission to get answers about the reality of being a vampire. He’s been shot, stabbed, thrown off rooftops, survived bad coffee and endured crippling boredom — all in the name of answering the eternal question of what it means to be a vampire.
2 Nov, 2017
As with the previous core lists, here are twenty Speculative Fiction Works featuring notable cities chosen entirely on the basis of merit and significance to the field1. No implication is intended that these are the only twenty books you should consider2.
Aria by Kozue Amano
Etched City by K. J. Bishop
Above by Leah Bobet
Midnight Never Come by Marie Brennan
Cinnabar by Edward Bryant
The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette de Bodard
Dhalgren by Samuel R. Delany
The Drowning City by Amanda Downum
Slow River by Nicola Griffith
Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner
The Book of the Mad by Tanith Lee
Wizard of the Pigeons by Megan Lindholm
Missing Man by Katherine MacLean
The City Under Ground by Suzanne Martel
Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor
The Buried Life by Carrie Patel
Naked in Death by Nora Roberts
The Just City by Jo Walton
Updraft by Fran Wilde
Metropolitan by Walter Jon Williams
Persons unfamiliar with one or two of the works, congratulations! You’re one of today’s Ten Thousand!
1: There are two filtering rules:
Only one work per author per list
Any given work by a particular author can appear on only one list. A given author may, however, have works on various lists but each instance of their work will be unique.
2: NO IMPLICATION IS INTENDED THAT THESE ARE THE ONLY TWENTY BOOKS YOU SHOULD CONSIDER.